18/03/2012 15:26
BAGHDAD, March 18 (AKnews) - Iran has agreed to assist the Iraqi Planning Ministry with Iraq's population census.
Mehdi AlahlaqDeputy minister Mahdi al-Allaq said Iraq and Iran agreed to begin a program to speed up the provision of required expertise to allow for the census to take place.
Planning minister Ali Yousef Shukri said previously that a number of obstacles hinder the execution of a census in Iraq, and that political agreement between the blocs in the Council of Representatives is required.
"Iran has a sophisticated statistical system and experience in organizing surveys and population censuses, and this is the main reason that prompted Iraq to agree with Iran in this regard," said Shukri.
Iraq's Ministry of Planning said previously that Iraq spent 205bn IQD ($176m) on the preparations for the census. The ministry launched an initiative last March to encourage political players to carry out the census, but the initiative was unsuccessful.
Iraqi political blocs agreed last December to form joint committees in the provinces of Diyala, Salahaddin, Nineveh and Kirkuk under the auspices of the United Nations to submit reports about the recommendations and problems of the census to the Council of Ministers.
Only Diyala and Salahaddin submitted their reports, which detailed the lack of any significant problems. Kirkuk and Nineveh failed to submit their reports.
Iraq has not witnessed a comprehensive census throughout the country since 1987, because the census in 1997 did not include the three provinces of the Kurdistan Region.
There were 16 million Iraqis in 1987, and the figure is now expected to be between 30 and 31 million, according to estimates from the Central Statistics Agency.
It is believed that some three million people lived in the Kurdistan Region in 1997.
Iraq's planning ministry said the proposed census will cover the entire country without any exception.
The general census of the Iraqi population was postponed twice due to poor security conditions in 2007, and again in 2009 because of fears it was used as a political tool in disputed areas such as Kirkuk city and areas of Nineveh province.
By Jaafar al-Wannan
AKnews.com
